Interesting Learning

As promised, here are the details for the project.

You have chosen something YOU are interested in and want to learn about (BTW: I’ll be sharing with you a really effective strategy for finding out more very shortly).

You are to do something with your new knowledge that you can share with me/the class/the world.

The ‘rules’ are pretty simple:

1. You must be able to provide sources for all your references/facts/information;
2. Er, that’s about it, really;
3. If in doubt, refer to rule 1.

As I have tried to make clear, you are free to share what you have learned in any way you choose: essay, poetry, a story, a modern dance, a song, an album, a film, a documentary, a crochet blanket (much faster than knitting!), cake(s)or anythingelse that allows you , to show off some skills that you have that I would be unlikely to know about otherwise…

The Serious Bit: From my point-of-view, and for assessment purposes, you need to be able to explain the decisions you have made/choices you have made. Er, that’s about it… though don’t forget Rule 1 above!

DEADLINE: The intention is that you should be ready to share in the last week of term (w/c: 27/6/16)

As inspiration, here are some bits and pieces that previous classes have created…

Calendar

First Aid Post

Barbed Wire

 

2016-2017

Hi class!

Well done on finding the blog. I’ll keep this updated fairly regularly (at least once a week) with details on the work we’re doing in class, and also homework and deadlines. I can also use this to share resources (like handouts) so you can find them when you need them. 🙂

SOUND, MAN!

Anyway, to kick us off, and to help you with your ‘sound stories’, here are some links that may help you find sounds or software to help you…

Audacity

AUDACITY: (LINK) Free sound editing software. Don’t be fooled by the look of it. This is a very clever bit of software that allows you to create awesome sound files and landscapes… and best of all, it’s free and runs on just about every platform (Mac/PC/Linux)

Sound Bible

Sound Bible is great for one thing: Sound effects. Lots and lots of lovely sound effects which are free to use (and see my earlier post on the use of foley sound to appreciate how important these are).

 

YouTube

(Click for a great intro!)

Honestly! There are loads of great found effects to be found on the Tube of Youness… and also some great videos on how to create your own (Hint: Search for the word FOLEY or SFX)

Now go, create, record, and think!

 

Rising To The Challenge

Another year, another chance to get busy with the blog.

WordPress has just become available to me again, so I am delighted to start up again by highlighting a couple of pieces of homework from this year’s ‘What is beauty?’ class. The first one is a photo essay/poem from Emma:

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Not only did Emma write the poem, she also sourced or took all the photographs herself. Multi-modal learning and skills, anyone?

The second one I wanted to share with you is this one from Sam. Keep watching…

Sorry about the green line! I managed to add it when uploading the video, but I’ve no idea how!

I can’t wait to see what the rest of you have to share! 😉

Playtime

I hope you’re getting some work done on your projects during the holiday… and knowing how the boredom must be kicking in by now, I thought I’d throw some distractions your way.

There are lots of ways you can demonstrate your thoughts on the topic, and I’m aware I often through out the names of a variety of online tools you might not know about, so here in one fun-filled package are a few you may wish to play with.

Please feel free to add your own ideas in the comments!

Glogster

Glogster is the site I used to put together the ‘poster’ I used to introduce the Owen poem.

Mr W’s Time Detective Glog!

Now… the bad news is that Glogster is undergoing a massive upgrade at the moment, so you may struggle to set up a new account. That said, it is worth the wait. 😉

If you want to go for it, you can sign up for a free account at edu.glogster.com Using the edu.glogster.com site is preferred to the usual public site as the content is ‘safer’, but more importantly, you get more tools for free (My favourite price)!

Next up…

Wikispaces

Looking for a free website that allows you to embed all sorts of media? Looking for incredible ease of use? Looking for a brilliant way of sharing or even better working with others? Then try wikispaces!

A wiki is an online site that lots of people can edit. The great news is that, as long as you are using it for K-12 education, it is free and has no adverts. I love wikis, and wikispaces is the easiest one I’ve found so far. It doesn’t look too flash at first, but if you have a bit of imagination and time (and are willing to search around for this site : http://wheretostartwithwikisandblogs.wikispaces.com/More+Advanced+Wiki+Editing) you can make it look really great — or really awful if you over do it!

You can get started here: http://www.wikispaces.com/content/for/teachers

You’ll need to sign up for a wiki ID, and then make sure you select the following options!

Watch to see the boxes to tick!

Animoto

Animoto is a lot of fun. The easiest way is to think of it as a way of creating very cool slideshows along with music you are allowed to use!

Rather than give a long explanation, I’ll just show you an Animoto I made a few years ago.

Animoto Show

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

Enough Already…

My laptop is really stuggling here, so I’m going to leave you to chase up these for starters. I’ll add more later, but in the meantime, keep working!

What We Did The Day…

Hi class.

As mentioned, this is the blog to support your work just now. I’ll be posting all sorts of goodies here to keep you entertained and busy.

Today we were looking at reviewing your research skills from the library project you completed in First Year. Just to remind you, the key skills are:

• Summarising
• Note-making
• Book and online research
• Organising
• Planning
• Drafting and redrafting

In addition, I reminded you that it is really important that you keep a careful note of your sources. Please remember, the rules for your work are easy to remember:

If you can’t give the source, or if you don’t have permission to use the material, you can’t use it. Simples!

We’ll be looking at great ways of finding information you can use quite happily, and we’ll be showing you how to turn someone else’s words into your own, so by the time we finish in June next year, you should be really good at finding and using information to support your own thoughts. That’s the plan!

Now, I left you with a puzzle at the end of the lesson… here it is again in case you’ve lost it:

If you reckon you know what it is, or if you think you’ve solved it, please post your thoughts as a comment to this post… that way, you can share with those who haven’t cracked it yet.

One last thing: I won’t be able to teach you on Tuesday as I’ll be at RDM to take some lessons with the P7 learners who’ll be joining us in August… however… I have made arrangements to keep you very busy and I think you’ll enjoy it. All I will say is that you’ll need to work on your own and with others, you’ll need to make lots of notes, you should find bits of it quite difficult, you might want to have your own headphones, and all will be revealed tomorrow!

Hello 2nd Years!

This is where you can come to keep up-to-date with the classwork and homework 😦 .

If you look to the right and left, you’ll see a variety of handy tools and links to help you get the most out of the site.

You can also add comments/ask questions using the COMMENTS facility after every post.

Please note: Comments will be moderated so, no bad language or inappropriate links or you will be banned!

Anyway… I’ll add more as we go on… enjoy!